Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning The Bells, The Bells, Taylors of Loughborough... Simpson???

The saga of the bells continues.

I hope to visit the foundry on Monday.

It seems that some of the bell historian community are virulently opposed to any suggestions regarding the (micro)tuning, of bells, and one is swearing by Simpson as their tuning hero.

Does anyone on the tuning list know what tunings Simpson actually uses/ used or advocated?

quote from bellhistorians this evening follows:

>
> Frankly, I think we'd all much prefer it if, whoever buys out the Taylor business, and please God someone does, simply sticks to the Taylor tradition that has given us the glorious sounds of Worcester Cathedral, Chewton Mendip, St Chad's Shrewsbury, et al and only plays with the company's structure, not its tuning methods.
>

Well said, Richard. For once we agree on something.

Mr Lucy, there's a reason no-one uses the tuning methods of John Harrison - they sound poor, especially when compared to the developments of Simpson.

As for your hope to "retune the major Western bells" to this system - all I can say is that you are spouting pretentious and arrogant rubbish. Do you really think that the cognoscenti of ringing have been duped into choosing Simpson tuning over Harrison?

Sunshine, you're either a nutjob with no ears, retarded or a troll. I'm not sure which yet.

Charles Lucy
lucy@...

- Promoting global harmony through LucyTuning -

for information on LucyTuning go to:
http://www.lucytune.com

For LucyTuned Lullabies go to:
http://www.lullabies.co.uk

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

Hahaha. Well, there goes that idea. I suppose the next step for you is a
hostile takeover?

-Mike

On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 9:13 PM, Charles Lucy <lucy@...> wrote:

>
>
> The saga of the bells continues.
>
> I hope to visit the foundry on Monday.
>
> It seems that some of the bell historian community are virulently
> opposed to any suggestions regarding the (micro)tuning, of bells, and
> one is swearing by Simpson as their tuning hero.
>
> Does anyone on the tuning list know what tunings Simpson actually
> uses/ used or advocated?
>
> quote from bellhistorians this evening follows:
>
> >
> > Frankly, I think we'd all much prefer it if, whoever buys out the
> Taylor business, and please God someone does, simply sticks to the
> Taylor tradition that has given us the glorious sounds of Worcester
> Cathedral, Chewton Mendip, St Chad's Shrewsbury, et al and only plays
> with the company's structure, not its tuning methods.
> >
>
> Well said, Richard. For once we agree on something.
>
> Mr Lucy, there's a reason no-one uses the tuning methods of John
> Harrison - they sound poor, especially when compared to the
> developments of Simpson.
>
> As for your hope to "retune the major Western bells" to this system -
> all I can say is that you are spouting pretentious and arrogant
> rubbish. Do you really think that the cognoscenti of ringing have been
> duped into choosing Simpson tuning over Harrison?
>
> Sunshine, you're either a nutjob with no ears, retarded or a troll.
> I'm not sure which yet.
>
> Charles Lucy
> lucy@... <lucy%40lucytune.com>
>
> - Promoting global harmony through LucyTuning -
>
> for information on LucyTuning go to:
> http://www.lucytune.com
>
> For LucyTuned Lullabies go to:
> http://www.lullabies.co.uk
>
>
>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

Would I be correct in interpreting this as a "No"?

Geez, and I thought people got feisty on the tuning list.

I have no idea what Simpson advocated but now I feel inspired to try some
bell samples with Lucy tuning.
For some reason I doubt it will sound poor.

Chris

On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 9:13 PM, Charles Lucy <lucy@...> wrote:

🔗Aaron Johnson <aaron@...>

Charles, he slapped you with a white glove, challenging you to a dual.

He called your tuning system 'poor'. Dems fightin' woyds. :)

AKJ

On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 8:13 PM, Charles Lucy <lucy@...> wrote:

> The saga of the bells continues.
>
> I hope to visit the foundry on Monday.
>
> It seems that some of the bell historian community are virulently
> opposed to any suggestions regarding the (micro)tuning, of bells, and
> one is swearing by Simpson as their tuning hero.
>
> Does anyone on the tuning list know what tunings Simpson actually
> uses/ used or advocated?
>
> quote from bellhistorians this evening follows:
>
>
> >
> > Frankly, I think we'd all much prefer it if, whoever buys out the
> Taylor business, and please God someone does, simply sticks to the
> Taylor tradition that has given us the glorious sounds of Worcester
> Cathedral, Chewton Mendip, St Chad's Shrewsbury, et al and only plays
> with the company's structure, not its tuning methods.
> >
>
> Well said, Richard. For once we agree on something.
>
> Mr Lucy, there's a reason no-one uses the tuning methods of John
> Harrison - they sound poor, especially when compared to the
> developments of Simpson.
>
> As for your hope to "retune the major Western bells" to this system -
> all I can say is that you are spouting pretentious and arrogant
> rubbish. Do you really think that the cognoscenti of ringing have been
> duped into choosing Simpson tuning over Harrison?
>
> Sunshine, you're either a nutjob with no ears, retarded or a troll.
> I'm not sure which yet.
>
>
>
>
>
> Charles Lucy
> lucy@...
>
> - Promoting global harmony through LucyTuning -
>
> for information on LucyTuning go to:
> http://www.lucytune.com
>
> For LucyTuned Lullabies go to:
> http://www.lullabies.co.uk
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
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>
>
>
>

Aaron Krister Johnson
http://www.akjmusic.com
http://www.untwelve.org

🔗Charles Lucy <lucy@...>

You may joke Mike, yet the possibility is that one of the engineering
companies in that area who have been getting bells work to keep their
guys in jobs may wish to grab the tradename and goodwill to expand
their engineering opportunities.
The result could be that an engineering company with more interest in
motor racing than music could get control of the name.
Hence we, with our music interests and investors, could well be the
lesser of the potential evils for the historical bell people.

There are 26 staff approx. £10,000 per week payroll, and we reckon a
price of around £1 million; so Damian Law and I will learn more when
we go there today to take a closer look at the foundry, company and
the books.

I have found some Simpson references, which seem to say zero about
intervals, but much about octaves:

http://www.hibberts.co.uk/simpson1.htm
http://www.hibberts.co.uk/simpson2.htm

On 21 Sep 2009, at 02:53, Mike Battaglia wrote:

> Hahaha. Well, there goes that idea. I suppose the next step for you
> is a hostile takeover?
>
> -Mike
>
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 9:13 PM, Charles Lucy <lucy@...>
> wrote:
>
> The saga of the bells continues.
>
> I hope to visit the foundry on Monday.
>
> It seems that some of the bell historian community are virulently
> opposed to any suggestions regarding the (micro)tuning, of bells, and
> one is swearing by Simpson as their tuning hero.
>
> Does anyone on the tuning list know what tunings Simpson actually
> uses/ used or advocated?
>
> quote from bellhistorians this evening follows:
>
> >
> > Frankly, I think we'd all much prefer it if, whoever buys out the
> Taylor business, and please God someone does, simply sticks to the
> Taylor tradition that has given us the glorious sounds of Worcester
> Cathedral, Chewton Mendip, St Chad's Shrewsbury, et al and only plays
> with the company's structure, not its tuning methods.
> >
>
> Well said, Richard. For once we agree on something.
>
> Mr Lucy, there's a reason no-one uses the tuning methods of John
> Harrison - they sound poor, especially when compared to the
> developments of Simpson.
>
> As for your hope to "retune the major Western bells" to this system -
> all I can say is that you are spouting pretentious and arrogant
> rubbish. Do you really think that the cognoscenti of ringing have been
> duped into choosing Simpson tuning over Harrison?
>
> Sunshine, you're either a nutjob with no ears, retarded or a troll.
> I'm not sure which yet.
>
> Charles Lucy
> lucy@...
>
> - Promoting global harmony through LucyTuning -
>
> for information on LucyTuning go to:
> http://www.lucytune.com
>
> For LucyTuned Lullabies go to:
> http://www.lullabies.co.uk
>
>
>
>
>

Charles Lucy
lucy@...

- Promoting global harmony through LucyTuning -

for information on LucyTuning go to:
http://www.lucytune.com

For LucyTuned Lullabies go to:
http://www.lullabies.co.uk

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

> You may joke Mike, yet the possibility is that one of the engineering companies in that area who have been getting bells work to keep their guys in jobs may wish to grab the tradename and goodwill to expand their engineering opportunities.

> The result could be that an engineering company with more interest in motor racing than music could get control of the name.
> Hence we, with our music interests and investors, could well be the lesser of the potential evils for the historical bell people.
> There are 26 staff approx. £10,000 per week payroll, and we reckon a price of around £1 million; so Damian Law and I will learn more when we go there today to take a closer look at the foundry, company and the books.

If your goal is to buy the largest bell foundry in the world in order
to alter the tuning of all of the bells to LucyTuning, and if you plan
to do this without any testing to see whether or not people prefer
LucyTuning to the old standard, or if it even sounds good on carillon
bells at all... How could anyone really support it? I honestly thought
you were joking around when I read that in your first message. Then,
as time went on, I realized you were only half-joking. Then, as more
time elapsed, I realized that you weren't kidding at all. As I have no
personal insight into your financial musculature, I can only assume at
this point that you are somewhat serious about this whole venture, and
that part of your goal with this does legitimately involve getting
these bells retuned away from the current system and to LucyTuning.

I've always held the opinion that LucyTuning is a pretty good sounding
meantone. Psychoacoustically, I don't know whether it really has to do
with your explanation about pi and so on, but it certainly does sound
pretty good. Nonetheless, it is irresponsible to think that you can
just slap it (or any meantone) on an instrument as grossly inharmonic
as a carillon and just expect it to sound good. Especially if your
rationale is based on a theory involving pi and such that is
impossible to falsify.

You are addressing your messages to a list whose entire focus is
tuning systems. There is likely a world of room for improvement in the
way carillon bells are tuned. Furthermore, if there existed a group of
people in the universe that are capable of actually figuring out how
to do exactly that, they are likely subscribed to this list. What do
you expect to hear when you tell us then that your plan is to blindly
throw your proprietary meantone onto these bells? Don't you expect to
hear the obvious objections of whether a meantone is even the best
route to choose? "Why not a well-temperament? Why not a nonoctave
tuning, with the scale degrees skewed to accomodate for the
inharmonicity of the bells?" Come on.

If you do such a thing, and your rationale presumably involves no
listening tests, you will likely be met with the protests of the
people working at the company who have spent their lives getting
involved with bell tuning systems, the people on this list and others,
the people in all sorts of academic circles that study this sort of
thing, and the people that have to listen to the out of tune bells. A
motor racing company, on the other hand, will likely lack a vested
interest in promoting their proprietary tuning system.

On the other hand, if it is somehow determined that a meantone is the
best way to go, I say sure, go with LucyTuning. But other than just
throw the bells out, there isn't much worse you can do than put all of
them in the world out of tune.

-Mike

🔗martinsj013 <martinsj@...>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Charles Lucy <lucy@...> wrote:
> I have found some Simpson references, which seem to say zero about
> intervals, but much about octaves:
> http://www.hibberts.co.uk/simpson1.htm
> http://www.hibberts.co.uk/simpson2.htm
> > > Frankly, I think we'd all much prefer it if, whoever buys out the
> > Taylor business, and please God someone does, simply sticks to the
> > Taylor tradition that has given us the glorious sounds of Worcester
> > Cathedral, Chewton Mendip, St Chad's Shrewsbury, et al and only plays
> > with the company's structure, not its tuning methods.

Is there an element of talking at cross purposes here? On the one hand there is the knowhow of how to cast a bell and subsequently modify it to obtain the desired strike note, and on the other there is the question of what strike notes to choose for your peal. Both could be called "tuning". For the latter I suppose meantone rather than JI or 12-tET could be aimed for; is that what Charles is advocating? And/or did Harrison talk about the former as well as the latter?

In any case, despite all the knowhow, achieving the desired strike note is difficult enough that unwanted deviations are still likely to obscure whether JI, 12-tET or another was intended, isn't it?

Steve M.

🔗w_orld_s <warrensummers@...>

I love dreamers. An old indian lady once told me: 'tread carefully in lands you are unfamiliar with...' and that seems apt here.

I offer this for a little bit of cultural context here:

As a ringer and a tuning type person I have often dreamt about building a ring of bells `differently' tuned. I have explored this idea with ringers and have learnt a lot about bells and a lot about ringers.

Changing the tuning of a ring of bells is like changing the notes in a gamelan. The artisan who produced those notes and the characters that they carry are really important to the way in which the ringers `hear' their music. Sometimes, for instance, a band might choose to use something other than the straight diatonic scale (if they have enough bells for the variation). Invariably this causes confusion, discomfort and even when it kind of `works', there is generally a feeling that 'everything is working perfectly well thanks very much'. (And I cannot think of so many situations where you can say that!)

Ringers LOVE their bells. They worship them. They spend hundreds and hundreds of hours with them. They are proud of their sound with all its oddity and internal contradictions. If you ironed out these details you iron out something of ringing culture. The contradictions and inexplicable nature of the current trends in bell tuning are an important part of tower ringing. I guess I am trying to say that in the case of English tower bells changing the tuning, changes the instrument. They are no longer `tower bells' and a new kind of music would be needed, new ringers to ring it, and new social functions to support it.

This in itself is an exciting idea and I know a small number of ringers who are up for the experimental approach.

You may however want to speak with the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers (http://www.cccbr.org.uk/) who is the representative body for ringers and without whoose co-operation I doubt you would get anything done.

If you were approaching a smaller less magnificent foundry I probably would not bother to say this. But the bells made by Taylors are magical instruments that the world-soul would sorely miss were they to fade.

If you have that kind of money to spend, why not commission a set of bells and let the results speak for themselves? If the outcome is so persuasive then I am sure that the ringing community would be very happy to adopt new and culturally sensitive ideas. This has happened in the past (i.e. Simpson). You do not need to own the foundry.

My preference would be for an international co-op of individuals to purchase Taylors. Hundreds of small stake holders. That would be wonderful.

Big vibes,

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

Thanks for sharing this. It's great to hear from a ringer
on the issue. While I would certainly support bells in
different tunings, I hope the traditional tuning -- and
Taylors in particular -- is preserved.

I'm from the States, but we had bells and a group that rang
them in my church until I was about 10 -- we built a new
building and didn't put bells in it. At least the handbell
choirs carried on.

As a kid I also remember watching All Creatures Great
and Small, and Tristan was a ringer...

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "w_orld_s" <warrensummers@...> wrote:
>
> I love dreamers. An old indian lady once told me: 'tread
> carefully in lands you are unfamiliar with...' and that
> seems apt here.
>
> I offer this for a little bit of cultural context here:
>
> As a ringer and a tuning type person I have often dreamt about
> building a ring of bells `differently' tuned. I have explored
> this idea with ringers and have learnt a lot about bells and
> a lot about ringers.
>
> Changing the tuning of a ring of bells is like changing the
> notes in a gamelan. The artisan who produced those notes and
> the characters that they carry are really important to the way
> in which the ringers `hear' their music. Sometimes, for instance,
> a band might choose to use something other than the straight
> diatonic scale (if they have enough bells for the variation).
> Invariably this causes confusion, discomfort and even when it
> kind of `works', there is generally a feeling that 'everything
> is working perfectly well thanks very much'. (And I cannot think
> of so many situations where you can say that!)
>
> Ringers LOVE their bells. They worship them. They spend hundreds
> and hundreds of hours with them. They are proud of their sound
> with all its oddity and internal contradictions. If you ironed
> out these details you iron out something of ringing culture. The
> contradictions and inexplicable nature of the current trends in
> bell tuning are an important part of tower ringing. I guess I am
> trying to say that in the case of English tower bells changing
> the tuning, changes the instrument. They are no longer `tower
> bells' and a new kind of music would be needed, new ringers to
> ring it, and new social functions to support it.
>
> This in itself is an exciting idea and I know a small number of
> ringers who are up for the experimental approach.
>
> You may however want to speak with the Central Council of Church
> Bell Ringers (http://www.cccbr.org.uk/) who is the representative
> body for ringers and without whoose co-operation I doubt you would
> get anything done.
>
> If you were approaching a smaller less magnificent foundry I
> probably would not bother to say this. But the bells made by
> Taylors are magical instruments that the world-soul would sorely
> miss were they to fade.
>
> If you have that kind of money to spend, why not commission a
> set of bells and let the results speak for themselves? If the
> outcome is so persuasive then I am sure that the ringing community
> would be very happy to adopt new and culturally sensitive ideas.
> This has happened in the past (i.e. Simpson). You do not need to
> own the foundry.
>
> My preference would be for an international co-op of individuals
> to purchase Taylors. Hundreds of small stake holders. That would
> be wonderful.
>
> Big vibes,
>
> W
>